by Rand Paul
To address this, the third section of my amendment attempted to fix a small part of this enormous problem: It would have strengthened the mens rea component of each of the prohibited acts in the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by including the words “knowing and willful” before each of the prohibitions. This is vitally important. If Congress is going to criminalize conduct at the federal level as it does in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, then the least it can do is include an adequate mens rea component. My amendment attempted to do just that.
My idea is to combine into one argument our fight for food freedom, health freedom, and freedom from the tyranny of overzealous federal agencies with SWAT teams. It will not surprise readers that this amendment failed. But we will never succeed if we don’t begin fighting these battles. We cannot shrink or be timid in the face of creeping federal intrusion into our lives. Our federal government certainly isn’t shy or timid.
There are folks all over America, from natural food suppliers in California to Amish farmers in Pennsylvania, who are heroes. They stand up against power much greater than their own. They fight for what they believe in against unbelievable odds and at considerable personal risk.
To the extent that I am able in my capacity as a U.S. senator, I will always have their back.
I hope you will too.
Conclusion
A friend of mine who helped edit this book commented that throughout the editing process these stories made him extremely mad. As a seasoned political operative and writer, he didn’t think he was capable of that kind of outrage anymore, at least not from mere words on a page. He thought he had seen and heard it all. Honestly, so had I.
Another friend noted that every time she read a chapter she thought to herself, “This is the worst story of them all!” Then she would read the next story and think, “This is even worse than the last story!” The stories in this book weren’t specifically ordered from bad to worse, so I don’t even know if this perception is true. But I do suspect the outrage from reading these stories does have a cumulative effect. It makes sense that anger would build reading these horror stories, one after the other.
I hope you also are mad and disappointed by these tragic stories. Not that I want you to annoy your family and neighbors with long diatribes about the government. That is not my purpose. But I think we all need to be more aware of what our government is doing. And with that awareness, I think we all need to be a little angrier with our government.
It is important what we do when we get mad. Some people just get louder. Some people yell through bullhorns and kick the television set. Some of this stuff makes people feel better about themselves, and that’s fine. But it won’t change a thing in this world.
What really matters is addressing the injustices committed by our government before our very eyes every day, many of which are outlined in this book. I have some specific ideas on how you can get involved. But what really matters is that you get involved—and that you do what works best for you.
Getting involved can be as simple as helping the people who’ve helped some of the victims in this book. There are groups that fight every day for justice, to win back our rights and to change the laws that allow government to abuse and harass citizens. At the end of the book, I’ve provided a partial list. The list also appears on www.governmentbullies.com, with links to these groups.
Join these groups. Contribute to them. Write about them. Publicize them.
You can also get involved in electoral politics. You can decide who will be your next mayor or city councilman. You can decide who will be your next congressman, senator, or president. You can choose the people who get to write the laws and enforce them. You can choose the leaders who get to appoint the people who write the regulations—who say whether or not your backyard is a wetland, or whether your milk can come from a particular cow or farm.
If you don’t like the people who are making the laws right now, you have some choices.
First, you can become one of them. Run for local office. Run for Congress or Senate. Actually, I don’t really recommend running for Senate—I have to tell you, some of these people up here on Capitol Hill are a little hard to take. Last week we spent four days arguing over whether or not we should vote, then we left without voting. After we left, the guy in charge of setting votes yelled about how we didn’t vote. I’m not kidding. Being a U.S. senator is often confusing and maddening.
You can become involved in the local party or movement of your choice. Attend a rally to End the Fed or a Tea Party event. Property rights meetings. Food freedom rallies. There are many organizations dedicated to whatever cause you believe needs the most focus. Get informed, volunteer to knock on doors and make calls for the person or organization that best represents your views.
I came to Washington eighteen months ago knowing I could not change the world immediately. But I thought I could make at least some headway quicker than I have. Before I got here, I never realized the enormity of the problem. I underestimated the number of reinforcements, like-minded fellow senators, that would be necessary for me to succeed.
I will keep doing my part. I will speak out every day against these despicable government bullies and their outrageous behavior. I will speak out against a government that harasses private property owners for no good reason. I will speak out against a government that throws small businessmen and -women in jail simply for trying to make a better life for their families and communities.
I will speak out against a government that fines and imprisons American citizens for breaking nebulous foreign laws and regulations. I will speak out against a government that harasses businesses for continuing with the same business practices they have for decades, that is, until some bureaucrat decides that they are breaking some arbitrary law.
I will speak against government agencies that basically create their own laws to suit their own agendas. Our Constitution gives the role of making the laws of the nation to Congress—not unelected bureaucrats! I will speak out against government agencies that have gotten away with terrorizing American citizens for decades with no oversight or restraint from the courts or federal government.
I will speak out against a government that thinks groping, harassing, and humiliating airport travelers is simply the new norm in this country. The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 hoped to frighten Americans into giving up their freedoms. I will speak out against government agencies like the TSA that have diminished our freedoms.
I will speak out against armed government SWAT teams that drag Amish dairy farmers from their beds at dawn simply for selling raw milk. I will speak out against arrogant bureaucrats who insist on punishing innocent citizens for the “crime” of selling rabbits. I will speak out against a government that favors corporate interests over family farms by hampering the latter with ridiculous and unnecessary regulations.
I will introduce the bills and amendments that could fix these problems and will fight for their passage. I will endorse candidates and work with elected officials who want to help me pass these bills and amendments. If they don’t pass, I will introduce them again. And again. And support even more candidates and elected officials who want to help.
Whatever it takes.
I did not come to Washington, D.C., simply to make the trains run on time and protect the status quo. The status quo is broken. Worse, our federal government and its many tentacle agencies have become the enemy of the people as much if not more than they have been public servants. Americans don’t want their hard-earned tax dollars going to a government that regularly works against their interests. To the degree that we must have government, it should be to help us, not hurt us.
Freedom can often be a vague term. But when we lose it, the definition immediately becomes concrete. I have shared with you many stories of everyday, hardworking Americans who’ve seen their freedom taken away from them in the blink of an eye, often without reason and without their having sufficient recourse. Our Constitution gives the federal
government guidelines that are supposed to protect both our freedoms and also protect us from the government. I will fight to make our federal government follow the Constitution, as all elected officials take an oath to do, once again. The proper constitutional order must be restored, so that America is governed once again as the Founding Fathers intended.
I will keep fighting to protect the freedoms that belong to all American citizens as our birthright. I hope you’ll join me.
Appendix: Notes and Sources
Many people and resources contributed to this book. While I have met or talked to many of these people personally, there are others whose stories were very powerful and needed to be amplified.
This book is not an investigative book. Many of the stories told and information reported represent work already done by others. Rather than endlessly noting multiple sourced items mixed in with personal conversations and research, we have included here other sources of information for the stories presented. Some are activist websites. Some are blogs. Some are reporters. Some are government websites with official releases of information. All of these sources contributed in one way or another to the finished material in this book, and I am grateful for the work many individuals have done in various fields to help expose these government bullies.
Live links to these and other sources of information are also located on www.governmentbullies.com, where you can also find pictures, video, and other information. This website is a good resource for those wanting to further delve into the seemingly endless reports on government bullying and news items related to the people and subjects covered in this book. There are even more stories to tell about the battles fought by John Pozsgai, Mike and Chantell Sackett, Robbie Wrigley, John Rapanos, Ocie Mills, Marinus Van Leuzen, Bill Ellen, Henry Juszkiewicz, David McNab, Abner Schoenwetter, Robert Blandford, Diane Huang, Steve and Cornelia Joyce Kinder, Nancy Okail, Sherif Mansour, Daniel Allgyer, John Moody, John and Judy Dollarhite, and others. There is additional information about the indignities suffered at the hands of the TSA by Owen JJ Stone, Carolyn Durand, Eliana Sutherland, Donna D’Errico, Susie Castillo, Thomas Sawyer, Tammy Banovac, Mandi Hamlin, Amy Strand, Ryan Thomas and Leona Thomas, and countless others like them.
Books
One of the foremost authors on regulatory and property rights is James DeLong. His books are indispensable to understanding the weight of these problems:
Property Matters: How Property Rights Are Under Assault and Why You Should Care
Out of Bounds and Out of Control: Regulatory Enforcement at the EPA
Another important author on regulations, food freedom, and other matters is farmer and lecturer Joel Salatin:
Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front
Organizations and Websites
Campaign for Liberty: www.campaignforliberty.com
Pacific Legal Foundation: www.pacificlegal.org
Heritage Foundation: www.Heritage.org
American Land Rights Association: www.landrights.org
Cato Institute: www.cato.org
Overcriminalized: www.overcriminalized.com
World Net Daily: www.worldnetdaily.com
While I may not agree with everything a group or website says, these groups and sites report on issues in this book in a way that the mainstream media often simply does not.
Primary Sources Categorized by Subject
James V. DeLong: Property Wrongs Articles
Property Wrongs: A compilation of property abuse stories- http://jamesvdelong.com/books/stories.html
John Pozsgai
“John Pozsgai” (obituary): “John Pozsgai died at his Morrisville home surrounded by his wife, grandchildren and friends on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011. He was 79.” http://www.phillyburbs.com/obituaries/courier_times/john-pozsgai/article_4ca54775-0a3b-5e74-8864-eaf74847f5fc.html
“Wetlands Enforcement”: http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/facts/fact15.html
“What the EPA Did to John Pozsgai”: http://voices.yahoo.com/what-epa-did-john-pozsgai-10277431.html
“Private Property Rights: An Endangered Species”: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/private-property-rights-an-endangered-species/
“Case Studies in Regulation: John Pozsgai”: http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/144015
“Everyone Is a Potential Criminal in the Eyes of the EPA”: http://reason.com/archives/2012/06/20/everybodys-a-potential-criminal-in-the-e
“Sen. Rand Paul Holds Hearing on Government Assault on Private Property”: http://www.louisville.com/content/sen-rand-paul-holds-hearing-government-assault-private-property-arena
“If You Rearrange the Letters in EPA, It spells Schutzstaffel”: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2891811/posts
“Excessive Regulations Are Killing the Economy and the Prospects for Jobs”: http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/2012/06/excessive-regulations-are-killing-the-economy-and-the-prospects-for-jobs/
“Protecting Ecologically Valuable Wetlands Without Destroying Property Rights”: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1991/07/bg840-protecting-ecologically-valuable-wetlands
John Rapanos
“[T]he government was asking for more jail time for Mr. Rapanos than a drug dealer sentenced the same day. With clear outrage, Judge Zatkoff stated: ‘So here we have a person who comes to the United States and commits crimes of selling dope and the government asks me to put him in prison for 10 months. And then we have an American citizen who buys land, pays for it with his own money, and he moves some sand from one end to the other and the government wants me to give him 63 months in prison. Now, if that isn’t our system gone crazy, I don’t know what is. And I’m not going to do it.’ ” “PLF Tenacity Wins U.S. Supreme Court Review of Michigan Landowner’s ‘Wetlands’ Case”: http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/19322.pdf
“Justice Scalia’s Regrettably Irrelevant Decision in Rapanos v. United States”: http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/moller_rapanos-vs-u.s.pdf
“The Clean Water Land Grab”: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv32n4/v32n4-5.pdf
“Supreme Court ‘Muddies’ Wetlands Law”: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2006/08/01/supreme-court-muddies-wetlands-law
“A False Dawn for Federalism: Clear Statement Rules After Gonzales V. Raich” (pp. 126–130 discuss Rapanos): http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=928985
“Rapanos Case Muddies the Water”: http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/rapanos-case-muddies-water
“Montana Senate to Feds: ‘Leave Our Water Alone’ ”: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2009/04/01/montana-senate-feds-leave-our-water-alone
“Town Battles Army Corps over Permafrost”: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2006/12/01/town-battles-army-corps-over-permafrost
Mike and Chantell Sackett
“The Sacketts bought a small parcel of about two-thirds of an acre in the Idaho Panhandle in 2005, near the shores of the resort community of Priest Lake. They hoped to build a three-bedroom home, surrounded by neighbors’ houses, and had obtained a county permit. Gravel had already been laid for the foundation when EPA officials told them their land was a wetland. They were ordered to immediately ‘restore’ the land to its natural state or risk fines of up to $37,500 a day.” “ ‘Little Guy’ Wins High Court Fight over Property Rights”: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-21/us/us_scotus-property-rights_1_property-rights-high-court-clean-water-act?_s=PM:US
“EPA’s Enforcement Authority After Sackett: Same Old, Same Old”: http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=4eab5e3b-266f-4d1c-bef2-6a1a79841c94
“PLF and the Sacketts take the EPA to Court”: http://www.pacificlegal.org/Sackett
“Washington Post, SCOTUS Blog, L.A. Times on Sackett Case”: http://blog.pacificlegal.org/2012/washington-post-scotus-blog-on-sackett
-cas/
“Sackett v. EPA: The Real Story”: http://blog.pacificlegal.org/2012/sackett-v-epa-the-real-rest-of-the-story/
PDF of Chantell’s physical letters to the EPA: http://blog.pacificlegal.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Sackettnotes.pdf
PDF of the Sacketts’ declaration before the Supreme Court: http://blog.pacificlegal.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Sackettdeclaration.pdf
“Compliance—or Else”: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv34n4/v34n4-2.pdf
“EPA Actions Should Be Subject to Judicial Review”: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/epa-actions-should-be-subject-to-judicial-review/
“Sackett v. EPA: Supreme Court Takes Up Property Rights Case”: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/09/sackett-v-epa-supreme-court-takes-up-property-rights-case/
“Washington Post: EPA Earns Reputation for Abuse”: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/04/washington-post-epa-earning-a-reputation-for-abuse/
“How One Couple Took On the EPA and Ended Up in the Supreme Court”: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/07/scribecast-how-one-couple-took-on-epa-and-ended-up-at-supreme-court/
“Priest Lake, Idaho Property Rights Amicus”: http://www.ij.org/sackett-v-epa
Robbie Wrigley
“Now the nightmare is over. But it is still a bad dream. Her 70-year-old father and his 80-year-old engineer are still imprisoned. Her main concern now is freeing them.” “A Nightmare Is Over”: http://www.enterprise-journal.com/opinion/article_2db7a8e6-ccc9-11df-a462-001cc4c03286.html